


goin’ to chicago with an ache in my heart

by orosea



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Coming of Age, Other, angst with an optimistic ending, not really but also yes really?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 03:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13227246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orosea/pseuds/orosea
Summary: She runs away when she is sixteen. She idly wonders if she should care about the loneliness she’s leaving her father with but quickly thinks, fuck it, as she presses the gas even harder.‘Welcome to Chicago!’Her father can be the one alone for once





	goin’ to chicago with an ache in my heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AvantGardener](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvantGardener/gifts).



> forgive me for general ooc stuff, i havent finished shameless

“Svetlana,” her father cooes, nudging a finger under the soft green blanket the baby is swaddled in. “We made it.”

* * *

 

Living in America is harder than it seems but Svetlana is a trooper. Just like her father tells her every night, tucking her into bed and kissing her forehead. “Goodnight darling. No waiting tonight, okay?”

Svetlana frowns, something that her father would look at and say, _just like your mother._ He always says it, when she eats her scrambled eggs with ketchup, when she yells at him for clogging the toilet, even when she’s crying tears that _are not ugly, thank you very much._

“Why can’t I wait for mama?” She asks instead of voicing this. Her father only sighs.

“We both know this,” his voice is somber, tilting downward into a spiral of bitterness. “Mama had trouble with the men at the border.”

Svetlana juts her lip out into a pout. “So? Shouldn’t she be home soon?” She’s waited so long already, what’s a few more weeks?

“Because, my little soldier,” he smiles but his eyes are wary. “We can’t be sure she’s even coming back.

Svetlana’s lip trembles but she does not cry, not in front of her father. She’s a trooper. So she pulls the blankets over herself like a shield, her chest aching something terrible.

“Goodnight papa.” She says and the lights switch off. Svetlana is left alone in the empty room and it will not be the last time she feels loneliness settle so easily on her shoulders.

* * *

She works two jobs and her father works three. It’s not until she’s thirteen that her father feels like a stranger to her, a ghost that roams the halls late at night; hisses of pain and creaking of floorboards echoing in the house at night.

She hears that construction is a very dangerous job, so she excuses it, for a while.

“To the American dream,” he toasts one night, on his third glass of whiskey. “To being poor and staying poor!”

Svetlana has learned not to flinch at the shouting, continuing to scrub at the at the plate in the sink.

“What a fucking amazing country.” He grumbles and Svetlana wonders if they should switch to a different dish soap. It’s easier to ignore him when he’s drunk.

“Taking my wife and my livelihood.” She can hear him take another swig and she slams the plate into the sink. She’s tired.

“I’m going to bed.”

Her room hasn’t changed much since she was seven, there is still faded pink curtains slung over her windows, a ratty stuffed bear resting precariously on the edge of her bed, and she still even has her height notched into her door frame.

She slips under her covers, thin but still warm and cries. She curls up and wishes she could feel her father thumb brush over her cheek, _my little soldier_ , he used to say.

* * *

 

She runs away when she is sixteen. She idly wonders if she should care about the loneliness she’s leaving her father with but quickly thinks _fuck it_ as she presses the gas even harder.

_Welcome to Chicago!_

Her father can be the one alone for once.

* * *

 

She lives on the streets in Chicago.

It’s cold and frankly, disgusting. She thought she had been poor before this, but at least she had a home.

There are nights where she misses her father. Some where her heart yearns for her mother’s voice, lilting lullabies in russian filtering through her bedroom window. Then there are days where she doesn’t feel it all. Days where pain and bitterness and self-pity are just too much.

Then she gets her first job. It’s nothing big, just waiting tables at the restaurant that hangs on a shady block, right where sensible people would not want a job. Svetlana has never fancied herself sensible, just a realist.

The bell on the counter dings, once, twice, now three times. “One slice of apple pie!” Svetlana smiles as she lifts the plate and playfully winks at another waitress as she passes.

It’s face value though because Svetlana is still hyper aware that when the clock hits 6:00, just like Cinderella, she’ll be right back out on the streets of Chicago with no hustle and bustle of the diner to make her feel like she’s part of anything bigger than herself. __

* * *

 

She’s friends with another waitress in the diner after a few months of dancing around different tables. Tara is willowy, blonde, and above all, incredibly kind.

They don’t get to talk much, and even when they do, Svetlana prefers to listen and nod. Tracing patterns on the table with her fingers as Tara gushes about the new shoes in the display window of a cute little shop a few blocks down.

“Oh—“ the bell on the door rings and Tara pauses mid sentence to welcome the tall man and woman entering. “I’ll be right with you! Sorry, hold on.”

“I’ll get it.” Svetlana interrupts and Tara gives her a look that almost says, are you sure? Svetlana gives a grin and grabs her notepad and fountain pen from the table.

“What can I get you? Today’s specials are–“ the woman snickers and Svetlana already knows what this is about. Her accent is not their problem. “Today’s specials are the peach–“ she attempts again but is cut off.

“Can we get a different server?” The man says so nonchalantly while perusing the menu that Svetlana feels anger bubble under her skin. “One that’s more… easy to understand.”

“No.” The man glances up then, eyebrows raised at the challenge in her voice.

“Listen, I don’t know which country you came from but here, we’re allowed to ask for different servers.” Svetlana can see Tara closing in on their table from the corner of her eye. She refuses to humiliated in front of Tara of all people.

“And in my country you shut your mouth and learn to deal with it.”

She doesn’t know what possesses her to do it, maybe it was the sneer on the girl’s face, or the smirk on the man’s, maybe it was Tara’s confident stride towards the table. Maybe she _wanted_ to do it.

But god, did it feel good to deck him.

Until a fist slams into her cheek, sending her reeling and onto the linoleum floor. She hears a strangled cry from Tara and the another fist connecting with skin.

She halfway expects to see Tara scrambling on the floor beside her but instead, she see the man cradling his nose with one hand and his jaw with the other.

A laugh escapes her, short and genuine. Tara helps her up and leads her back into the kitchens.

“Are you okay?” Svetlana nods but her cheek feels tender to the touch and Tara can clearly see through the thin lie.

She hands Svetlana her fuzzy coat and pulls her out into the alley behind the diner. Tara squeezes her hand and Svetlana almost chokes at the heartfeltness of it all.

“I’ll be right back, I’m letting boss know our shift is up and I’m taking you home.” Svetlana feels a familiar sting in her chest.

“I don’t have a home.” She admits begrudgingly but Tara smiles anyway.

“Okay, well, you can stay with me until you do.” Svetlana swears she’s not gonna cry, so she tucks her nose into her jacket and gives a shaky nod, not daring to look directly into Tara’s warm brown eyes.

She looks down instead, her fingers aching and her jaw blooming purple, maybe blue in the moonlight of the wet alley. This shouldn’t feel like a messed up fairy tale, but maybe Svetlana is Cinderella because something about this feels magical; freeing. With the stars glinting off the puddle below her feet, she could swear that the universe is splayed around her.

She thinks that just maybe, she’ll be ok, she’s almost sure of it, a smile playing on her lips.

 

 


End file.
